Flickr, the photo sharing website by Yahoo has added some new features which allows you to import your Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail contacts in your Flickr account. Taking a hint from Twitter, Flickr also suggests users whom you may know.

To import existing contacts from Facebook, Hotmail and Gmail, go to the contact importer page and grant the required permissions.

This will load your existing Facebook friends who have a Flickr account and you can add them to your Flickr contact list one by one. The same procedure works with Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail contacts.

Once you have imported all the contacts, you will start seeing suggestions and people whom you may know. Contacts can be further categorized into different groups e.g Family, Friends and the friend suggestions are similar to that found in Facebook. You can dismiss a friend suggestion and Flickr will load a new Flickr profile, whom you may know.

There is another link called “Photos of Your Contacts” which shows the recent uploads by friends and people present in your contact list. You may further fine tune the page to see recent photos from different groups e.g friends, family members, co workers and so on.

If you are concerned regarding the privacy of your Flickr profile and do not want to be found in profile searches, head over to the privacy settings page and select the desired checkboxes. There are three settings which you can toggle:

Hide or unhide your photos from site wide searches

Hide your photos from searches on third party sites that uses the Flickr API

Hide your profile from site wide searches and third party sites that uses the Flickr API

Hiding your profile like this will hide it from Flickr people searches, suggested contacts, from the find your friendsaddress book search and from people searches on 3rd party sites.

Currently, Flickr limits a maximum of 3000 non reciprocal contacts, which means you can add up to 3000 people to your Flickr contact list. However, there is no limit on the number of people who can add you to their contact list. More information is available on this FAQ page.

Amit has been writing for Techie Buzz since early 2009 and keeps a close eye on web apps, Google and all things Tech. He also writes at his own tech blog, Ampercent. Follow him on Twitter @ amit_banerjee